[](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Kelvin.vscode-sshfs)
The config editors stores this, by default, in your User Settings (`settings.json`) as:
```json
"sshfs.configs": [
{
"name": "hetzner",
"putty": "Hetzner",
"label": "Hetzner",
"hop": "hetzner2",
"root": "/root"
}
],
```
This config is configured to copy settings (e.g. username, host, ...) from my PuTTY session. Due to me having loaded my private key in Pageant (PuTTY's agent), this config allows me to create a connection without having to provide a password/passphrase. It also specifies that all file operations _(`ssh://hetzner/some/file.js`)_ are relative to the `/root` directory on the server.
Configurations are read from your global User Settings, the current workspace's settings, and any JSON files configured with `sshfs.configpaths`. Even when the workspace overrides this setting, the globally-configured paths will still be read. The workspace versions do have higher priority for merging or ignoring duplicates.
_Uses `$SHELL` by default to launch your default user shell. A config option exists to change this, e.g. `"ksh -"` or `"exec .special-profile; $SHELL"`_
If a connection is already opened for a configuration, there is no need to reauthenticate. As long as the configuration hasn't changed, existing connections (both for workspace folders and terminals) will be reused.
This works seamlessly with extensions using the `vscode.workspace.fs` API _(added in VS Code 1.37.0)_, although not all extensions switched over, especially ones making use of binary files.
As can be seen, right-clicking a remote directory gives the option to instantly open a remote terminal in this directory.
The extension supports any `ssh://` URI. I actually opened `ssh://hetzner/ng-ui` as my folder, which resolves to `/root/ng-ui` on my remote server. By default, the button/command opens `ssh://hetzner/` which would then mount `/root`, as that is what my `Root` config field is set to. You can set it to whatever, including `~/path`.
### Miscellaneous
The extension comes with a bunch of other improvements/features. Internally the [ssh2](https://www.npmjs.com/package/ssh2) package is used. The raw config JSON objects _(as seen in [Config editor](#Config%20editor))_ is, apart from some special fields, a one-on-one mapping of the config options supported by this package. Power users can edit their `settings.json` to e.g. make use of the `algorithms.cipher` field to specify a list of ciphers to use.
Some other features worth mentioning:
#### Prompt host/username/password/... for every connection
The extension supports using a custom `sftp` subsystem command. By default, it uses the `sftp` subsystem as indicated by the remote SSH server. In reality, this usually results in `/usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server` being used.
The `SFTP Command` setting allows specifying to use a certain command instead of the default subsystem. The `SFTP Sudo` setting makes the extension try to create a sudo shell _(for the given user, or whatever sudo defaults to)_ and run `SFTP Command`_(or `/usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server` by default)_. For most users, setting this to `<Default>` should allow operating on the remote file system as `root`. Power users with esoteric setups can resort to changing `SFTP Command` to e.g. `sudo /some-sftp-server`, but might run into trouble with password prompts.
The `Terminal command` option, as mentioned in [Terminals](#Terminals), allows overriding the command used to launch the remote shell. By default, the extension launches a remote shell over the SSH connection, runs `cd ...` if necessary, followed by `$SHELL` to start the user's default shell. This config option allows to replace this `$SHELL` with a custom way way of starting the shell, or configuring the provided default SSH shell.
